Getting fed up with this season's referee obsession.

Fine, I agree an obviously late challenge should be penalised, especially on kickers who are exposed, but we've seen two ridiculous penalties given early on in the Saints-Leeds semi. It's something I've noticed creeping increasingly into the game and the mentality of the referee this season.

If a player chooses to draw a defender and release the ball late, he knows there is a very good chance that defender will be coming in to make a hit, and a defender cannot pull out of a challenge like that with 0.2 of a second to react.

We do not need more penalties in RL. Give it a break Cummings, it's a farce.

What are the players expected to do?

They are commited to a challenge, and when someone like Burrow who is dangerous with the ball is dancing close to the line, any player will try and make the challenge.

Both early penalties against saints for it were both the wrong call. Both times the player was committed to the tackle and the hit was within a fraction of a second of the player being tackled releasing the ball.

I'm all for protecting players, but at the end of the day it's a physical game and big hits are part and parcel of that game

What pees me off is the inconsistancy of players getting shown yellow cards for it.
A player will get 1 in a game you will then see the exact same situation result in nothing but a penalty for weeks and then all of a sudden another sinbin will appear.
It is even a sinbin offence or it isn't.

Moores was unlucky, Meli's was just a stupid play by Meli,

Meli clearly had the time to pull out, the ball was long gone before he committed himself

It has become a joke, you are going to be committed, it's a contact sport.

Both ridiculous decisions. What is so annoying is that every single set sees two or three of them from any side in any league. Then the ref sees fit to only penalise one team for it, thats when it frustrates.

Meli wasnt, he threw the shoulder in knowing he wasnt going to hit the man with the ball, it was gone before he committed himself.

It does need to be refereed consistantly, you wont find me arguing against that, it is unfortunately ignored a lot of the time. But the game gains nothing from allowing players like Meli throw that shoulder in.

Moore's was unlucky, he was keeping Sinfield honest and we dont want to lose that from the game, but Melis was different.

Meli stood his ground, I thought that was allowed

except when leeds players do it.

In that case it's dirty play.

Listen sunshine, you and I both know that if ryan bailey had put in either of those hits thered be people on here asking why he wasn't sin binned/sent off/burnt at the stake.

Ryan couldn't put challenges like those in though as it would require him to be first in, which our Ryan never is.

If Bailey had put the hit that Meli put in , the contact would have been with the players head , or his balls that Bailey missed with the knee last week because it was level with Carmonts chest

Meli's chllenge wasn't late it was committed , but it was fair and it was shoulder to shoulder , no damage done , no attempt to damage

Play on

You're funny , shoulder to shoulder is fine , It's the elbow/forearm to head and the knee to chest that are the problems

Very frustrating as a Wigan fan because Liam Farrell was sin binned for a late incident in the Challenge Cup against Leeds on Danny McGuire, not dissimilar to the ones mentioned, and was just as committed as the two involved in today's game, but the same punishment was not sentenced. The same referee I might also add. I don't have a problem with the punishment if the referee's are consistent.

You can tell these refs have never played the game, how are they suppost to pull out that late. If its an obvious late hit then it should be a penalty but not those two today, both poor decisions.

That Farrell sin bin was very harsh, but it didnt help with McGuires complete over reaction.

They are consistent. Consistently awful.

do the refs even know what consistent means, perhaps someone should explain the meaning of it.

Knee to chest, thats bloody impressive, not sure it is physically possible, but bloody impressive all the same.

Id be that impressed by Bailey getting his knee to chest height whilst running that id be tempted to allow just for how physically difficult that must be.

and that's why it was put on report. He was running in normal, then raised the knee to lunge at Carmont.

and if you can't lift your knee high enough to get level with your chest you've got flexibility issues. It's pretty easy for most people.

I'd agree the ref's inconsistency (and not just on late hits) is very frustrating. Although in a slight defence of the refs IIRC the Farrell "late hit" was on McGuire as he was kicking rather than simply passing which the ones given yesterday were, which is probably why the yellow card appeared for Farrell but not for Moore or Meli.

I actually think the opposite to Smokey, I thought Moore had more opportunity to pull out and knew that Sinfield was going to pass it which is why he hit with his shoulder and didn't try to wrap his arms round, whereas the Meli one was a ridiculous decision in my view.

Moore's was still a tad harsh too.

He was aiming for Carmonts nuts , but Ryan being the useless piece or crap he is missed , fortunatley Carmont saw it coming and managed to get his hands/arms up and prevented any damage , the fact he did that saved the thug from getting a ban , still doesn't mean it wasn't a dangerous challenge

Got to admit that yesterday Leeds were quite good , apart from several forward passes they behaved , and guess what ? , They won , so what does that tell us ?

When they concentrate on playing RL instead of trying to cheat , they are a very good RL team

The Moore one isn't as straight forward as that though. If you say "Moore knew Sinfield would pass" Sinfield could just as easily have dummied and then everyone would be slating Moore for not going for him, so why should Moore take the risk that he wouldn't dummy?

Maybe Moore realised he'd passed and even though he didn't have time to pull out of the challenge completely, he just turned his body to protect himself in the collision. Obviously no point wrapping your arms round for a tackle when the ball has just left, but with no time to pull out completely you might as well brace for impact.

really, i must have flexibility issues, whilst running i find quite difficult to get my knee much further than hip height, maybe a bit further, but certainly not close to the 90 degree bend i would need to get it to chest height